Technocrats Rule: Democracy Is OK as Long as the People Rubberstamp Our LeadershipPost Date: 2018-08-14 12:49:05 by Deckard0 CommentsWe are in a very peculiar ideological and political place in which Democracy (oh sainted Democracy) is a very good thing, unless the voters reject the technocrat class's leadership. Then the velvet gloves come off. From the perspective of the elites and their technocrat apparatchiks, elections have only one purpose: to rubberstamp their leadership. As a general rule, this is easily managed by spending hundreds of millions of dollars on advertising and bribes to the cartels and insider fiefdoms who pony up most of the cash. This is why incumbents win the vast majority of elections. Once in power, they issue the bribes and payoffs needed to guarantee funding next election cycle. The ...

2020: Oddsmakers Favoring Kamala Harris to Win Dem Presidential NominationPost Date: 2018-08-09 17:38:26 by nolu chan8 Comments 2020: Oddsmakers Favoring Kamala Harris to Win Dem Presidential Nomination by Tony Lee Breitbart 9 Aug 2018 Top oddsmakers have Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) as the early favorite to win the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. According to a Wednesday evening report in the San Francisco Chronicle, on Oddshark, Harris has surged into a tie with Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders for the best Democratic odds to win the 2020 presidential election. The report also notes that Oddschecker, which compares betting odds across various sites and sportsbooks, gives Harris 9/2 odds to win the Democratic nomination, followed by Joe Biden with 11/2 odds. President Donald Trump, ...

Becoming an Illegal Alien - 'I Know a Good Deal When I See One'Post Date: 2018-08-07 20:16:52 by hondo681 CommentsFORMS ARE GOING FAST - SIGN UP TODAY! Becoming an Illegal (An actual letter from an Oregon resident sent to his Senator) Dear Senator Wyden, The Honourable Mr. Wyden, As a native Oregonian and excellent customer of the Internal Revenue Service, I am writing to ask for your assistance. I have contacted the Department of Homeland Security in an effort to determine the process for becoming an illegal alien, and they referred me to you. My primary reason for wishing to change my status from U.S. Citizen to illegal alien stems from the bill which was recently passed by the Senate and for which you voted. If my understanding of this bill is accurate, as an illegal alien who has ...

Glenn Jacobs, aka Kane of WWE, takes home Knox County mayoral racePost Date: 2018-08-03 01:23:31 by hondo683 CommentsGlenn Jacobs, the towering 6-foot-8 giant of a professional wrestler best known as Kane in the WWE, has won an election to determine the next mayor of Knox County in Tennessee on Thursday night.Jacobs, 51, had nearly two-thirds of the more than 80,000 total ballots cast, according to Knoxville ABC affiliate WATE. He was opposing Democratic nominee Linda Haney in the heavily Republican Knox County.It was a far cry from Jacobs' victory in the Republican primary race, which he won by just 23 votes back in May over Knox County commissioner Brad Anders.In a professional wrestling career that stretches back to the early 1990s, Jacobs became one of the longest-tenured performers in WWE ...

Republicans abuzz over Schmidt's divorce from GOPPost Date: 2018-08-01 09:18:26 by Willie Green3 CommentsSteve Schmidt's public break from the GOP and quiet departure from his corporate PR gig earlier this summer are fueling speculation in Republican circles that that hell advise a presidential bid by his longtime client, former Starbucks chief Howard Schultz, or another Democratic candidate in 2020. Questions about Schmidts future began to swirl in June when he announced his departure from the GOP in a series of tweets embracing the Democratic Party. It was a rare act of defiance in a party that has mostly fallen in line behind President Donald Trump  one that has many Republicans talking about what exactly Schmidt plans to do next. Working for a Schultz campaign would ...

Relax, Boomers: Socialism Is Good NowPost Date: 2018-07-29 20:13:56 by Willie Green20 CommentsIts a shame that Merwin K. Harts life has drifted into obscurity, because in his prime he was a real dazzler, one of the brightest stars from the Golden Age of American Paranoia. In the 1940s and 1950s, Hart ran an organization called The National Economic Council. Neither a government agency nor a laboratory for research, the NEC served as a propaganda funnel for the anxieties of the postwar corporate elite. Men of fortune, like the du Ponts (chemical magnates) and the Pews (of Charitable Trust fanfare) would turn over large sums of money to Hart, who would in turn blast out warnings about the three million immigrants who had entered the country ...

Why is libertarianism wrong?Post Date: 2018-07-29 04:49:27 by Gatlin1 CommentsWhy is libertarianism wrong? leftmargin="30" topmargin="40" bgcolor="white" LINK="navy" VLINK ="gray"> Why is libertarianism wrong? The origins, background, values, effects, and defects of libertarianism. Some sections are unavoidably abstract, but at the end some irreducible value conflicts are clearly stated. Note that this is not intended as a formal argument with libertarians: as explained below, there are no shared premises for such an argument. If you are a libertarian, it is pointless for you to read this: go somewhere else. > origins Libertarianism is part of the Anglo-American liberal tradition in political ...

Top 10 Libertarian LiesPost Date: 2018-07-28 06:23:13 by Gatlin8 Comments For a short time, it seemed like the libertarian cancer in American politics was finally dead. Rand Paul, the supposedly electable and hip son of Ron Paul, ended his train wreck of a campaign after a pathetic showing at the polls. The Republicans instead chose Donald Trump, the least libertarian candidate in the race. On the Democratic side, democratic socialist Bernie Sanders built a massive movement around his decidedly anti-libertarian ideas.But I should have known better than to discount the corporate class. Led by the Koch brothers, the 1% did not give up on their capitalist agenda. As their traditional Republican venues disappeared, they headed to their last resort: the Libertarian ...

Another Reason Why You Should Loathe Everything about Politics and PoliticiansPost Date: 2018-07-27 09:49:39 by Deckard0 Comments A D.C. lawyer/political hack named Lanny Davis spent eight years on cable television defending Bill Clintons assaults, molestations, and accusations of rape of various women, and verbally attacking the women on television. Hes back on TV portraying himself as Your Moral Superior by broadcasting a tape that Trumps former sleazeball lawyer (the most common kind) made of him and his client, Trump, discussing an alleged payment to a woman to keep quite about an affair  long before Trump ran for president. Lanny is now Every Womans Defender and a champion of the Me Too movement. Word of advice: If you discover that your lawyer is ...

Trump gets his big moment to boast about trade warPost Date: 2018-07-27 06:50:35 by Gatlin1 Comments NEW YORK  President Donald Trump is likely to get one of the best headlines of his presidency on Friday with a highly tweetable report expected to show the U.S. economy grew at its fastest rate in years. But the big number risks becoming fools gold. Economists warn that Trumps trade war sped up U.S. exports in the second quarter as China and other countries rushed to snap up American soybeans and other products ahead of impending tariffs, lifting growth in ways likely to be reversed in the coming months. And as Trump continues to argue that the strong economy and stock market offer him leeway to press his aggressive approach, his trade battles could wind up slowing an ...

Trump's religious freedom squad promises to deliverPost Date: 2018-07-27 06:43:46 by Gatlin1 Comments President Donald Trumps impulsive foreign policy has many critics but at least one bright spot  hes winning plaudits from the evangelical right and even some Democrats for his push on religious freedom. Trump's religious freedom squad  including Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Ambassador at Large Sam Brownback, and national security adviser John Bolton, a former member of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, or USCIRF  has promised to deploy a stockpile of little-used legal tools to shame and sanction countries they view as interfering with the practice of religion. On Thursday, as the U.S. welcomed a ...

OH GOD, PLEASE NOT LIBERTARIANISM…Post Date: 2018-07-27 02:36:03 by Gatlin11 Comments Manifestos are not meant to be sophisticated things. They are declarations, not dissertations. To write a manifesto is to issue a piercing scream, a denunciation of all the worlds wrongs and a rousing call to arms. The manifesto is no place for nuance or pragmatism, for thinking things through and resolving differences. The manifesto is the medium of one who has already worked everything out and is compelled to shout it to the world. Oddly enough, the manifesto appears to have switched sides over the last century. Once they were the provenance the revolutionary left, from the Communists to the Surrealists. But since the 1970s, it has principally been libertarians cranking them out. ...

The Libertarian LiePost Date: 2018-07-26 04:44:46 by Gatlin0 Comments Before we get to the heart of all this, let me address perhaps my biggest peeve about libertarians. Trust me, its relevant. They are, without a doubt, the most defensive and thin-skinned group on the Right  far more so than Christian conservatives, gay Republicans, whoever. Maybe its because so many of them became libertarians in the first place in order to escape criticism of any kind, or maybe its because theres something about libertarianism that excites the region of the brain responsible for religious utopianism, or maybe its the accumulated resentment at being in the backseat of the right-wing coalition  I dont know. But I am ...

Trade war fears fizzle as Trump strikes deal with EUPost Date: 2018-07-25 21:37:10 by Gatlin1 CommentsAnnouncement follows meeting with EU Commission President Juncker Rampant fears of a trade war with Europe fizzled Wednesday when President Trump unexpectedly extracted a zero-tariff agreement from the European Union. Mr. Trump and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker emerged from a White House meeting having backed away from a tit-for-tat tariff fight that threatened to punish automakers, farmers and consumers on both sides of the Atlantic. They agreed to hammer out a deal to eliminate all tariffs and trade barriers and eliminate all subsidies on non-auto industrial goods, which closely mirrored the deal proffered by Mr. Trump. This was a very big day for free and ...

House conservatives introduce resolution to impeach Rod RosensteinPost Date: 2018-07-25 21:23:47 by Gatlin0 Comments President Trumps conservative allies in the House of Representatives have moved to impeach Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, claiming that he committed high crimes and misdemeanors for failing to turn over requested documents and otherwise obstructing oversight by Congress. I just filed a resolution with @Jim_Jordan and several colleagues to impeach Rod Rosenstein. The DOJ has continued to hide information from Congress and repeatedly obstructed oversight--even defying multiple Congressional subpoenas.We have had enough. Mark Meadows (@RepMarkMeadows) July 25, 2018Republican Reps. Mark Meadows (NC) and Jim Jordan (OH) filed the resolution late Wednesday, ...

Why Libertarians Are Wrong About DrugsPost Date: 2018-07-25 07:53:12 by Gatlin3 Comments Libertarians and social conservatives both resist an intrusive central government, but they differ over exactly what constitutes intrusive policy, especially when it comes to private behavior. Nowhere is this divide more obvious than in the war on drugs. Social conservatives are troubled by drug abuse, especially among the young, and believe that government regulation of certain substances is necessary to curb behavior seen not only as self-destructive but also incompatible with a strong and free community. Libertarians, on the other hand, argue that the heavy-handedness of the nanny state, and the law-enforcement abuses likely to accompany it, present a greater threat to ...

Six Reasons Libertarians Should Reject the Non-Aggression PrinciplePost Date: 2018-07-24 05:45:03 by Gatlin1 Comments Many libertarians believe that the whole of their political philosophy can be summed up in a single, simple principle. This principlethe non-aggression principle or non-aggression axiom (hereafter NAP)holds that aggression against the person or property of others is always wrong, where aggression is defined narrowly in terms of the use or threat of physical violence. From this principle, many libertarians believe, the rest of libertarianism can be deduced as a matter of mere logic. What is the proper libertarian stance on minimum wage laws? Aggression, and therefore wrong. What about anti- discrimination laws? Aggression, and therefore wrong. ...

Gullible GOP lawmaker strips & makes total ass out of himselfPost Date: 2018-07-23 12:39:04 by Willie Green3 Comments Sacha Baron Cohen's "Who is America?" returned Sunday for its second episode, featuring a sketch with Jason Spencer, a Republican state lawmaker from Georgia, that rivals the debut episode's guns-for-toddlers segment in shock value. The new episode of Cohen's Showtime series, which also features the comedian duping Dick Cheney and Corinne Olympios from "The Bachelor," revives his Israeli anti-terrorism expert character Col. Erran Morad. As Morad, Cohen convinces Spencer that he's acting in a training video, similar to how he persuaded former and current congressmen to record public-service announcements for the fake "Kinderguardians" program ...

Libertarianism's terrible, horrible, no good, very bad ideaPost Date: 2018-07-23 06:40:03 by Gatlin1 Comments Ideas have consequences  and bad ideas have bad consequences. Just how bad the consequences turn out to be depends to a large extent on the precise character of the bad idea. A bad idea that influences no one isn't really that bad. It's just stupid, and instantly forgettable. But a bad idea that lodges in people's minds, fires their imaginations, inspires them to persuade others of its wisdom, and motivates them to make bad decisions in the world  that idea is truly bad. Some bad ideas inspire world-historical acts of evil. "The Jews are subhuman parasites that deserve to be exterminated" may be the worst idea ever conceived. Compared with such a ...

What's wrong with libertarianism[Full Thread]Post Date: 2018-07-22 07:16:35 by Gatlin44 Comments Apparently someone's curse worked: we live in interesting times, and among other consequences, for no good reason we have a surplus of libertarians. With this article I hope to help keep the demand low, or at least to explain to libertarian correspondents why they don't impress me with comments like "You sure love letting people steal your money!" Good libertarians and the other kind This article has been rewritten, for two reasons. First, the original article had sidebars to address common objections. From several people's reactions, it seems that they never read these. They're now incorporated into the text. Second, and more importantly, many people who call ...

Three Problems for Libertarian Supporters of a Basic Income ...Post Date: 2018-07-21 05:06:14 by Gatlin11 Comments Today The Atlantic published an article on the Basic Income Guarantee, with special focus on the work of Scott Santens to crowdfund a basic income on a voluntary basis. And last week, Michael Tanner of the Cato Institute published a terrific policy analysis assessing both the strengths and weaknesses of various sorts of BIG and related-policies. Ive written a few pieces defending a BIG from both a pragmatic and a more principled perspective. But its never been an issue about which Ive felt absolutely settled. The idea of implementing a BIG as a replacement for our current welfare state faces some serious difficulties. And lately  especially after reading ...

Getting conservatives and Libertarians to agree on tariffs Post Date: 2018-07-20 16:36:19 by Gatlin9 Comments One of the most irritating things about Libertarians is that they are often doctrinaire and immovable on topics. (I know, because I'm one.) Tariffs, for instance. Tariffs are uncategorically bad, as they fly in the face of the gospel doctrine of free trade. Since most of conservative bent would agree with Adam Smith on most matters economic, we also agree with the premise. But for many of us, me included, our agreement is only categorical. This is where conservatives lose most Libertarians. But one can reasonably argue tariffs beyond this point. An argument might go something like this: we agree that tariffs are bad, and we also agree that we are in favor of free trade. America ...

1 House Republican's chilling warning on Trump and RussiaPost Date: 2018-07-20 13:13:30 by Willie Green6 Comments(CNN)In a New York Times op-ed  headlined "Trump Is Being Manipulated by Putin. What Should We Do?"  Texas Republican Rep. Will Hurd writes of this week's summit between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin: "The president's failure to defend the United States intelligence community's unanimous conclusions of Russian meddling in the 2016 election and condemn Russian covert counterinfluence campaigns and his standing idle on the world stage while a Russian dictator spouted lies confused many but should concern all Americans. By playing into Vladimir Putin's hands, the leader of the free world actively participated in a Russian disinformation campaign ...

The problems with libertarianism. : philosophy Post Date: 2018-07-20 07:09:34 by Gatlin5 Comments I see two major problems with libertarianism. The first is that it is a moral and social framework that only considers the means when ruling on the rightness of an action. The problem is that means are not sufficient, only necessary in determining the right action; the ends are also a necessary part of the calculus. Because the ends aren't considered the actions prescribed by libertarianism may or may not be the right ones, it would depend on the ends. Any framework that leads to wrong actions is an ineffective framework. An example of this: libertarianism says the government should not force restaurants to serve healthy food because government force is an immoral means. Even if this ...